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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 000358
SIPDIS
NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2016
TAGS: PRELPGOVOVIPKDEMPHUMKIRFEGIRMFA
SUBJECT: CODEL WOLF MEETINGS WITH GOE MINISTERS
Classified by Ambassador Francis Ricciardone for reasons 1.4
(b) and (d).
-------
Summary
-------
¶1. (C) In January 15 meetings with the Ministers of
Interior, Justice, and Trade-Industry, as well as with senior
MFA officials, Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) pressed the
GOE on the Ayman Nour case, as well as religious freedom,
support for the U.S. in international fora, and discussed
regional challenges. The GOE officials responded with
consistency on the Nour case (that he is a convicted criminal
with a shady past), though Minister Rashid, a leading
reformer within the Cabinet, suggested also that unnamed
anti-reform elements in the GOE had manipulated the Nour case
in order to stymie the GOE's reform drive. End summary.
¶2. (SBU) Rep. Wolf, accompanied by the Ambassador, Chief of
Staff Dan Scandling, and poloff (notetaker), met separately
with Interior Minister Gen. Habib Al-Adly, Justice Minister
Mahmoud Aboul Leil, and Trade and Industry Minister Rashid M.
Rashid on Sunday, January 15. Due to FM Aboul Gheit's sudden
trip to Kuwait for the funeral of Sheikh Jaber, MFA Assistant
Minister for the Cabinet (D equivalent) Wafaa Bassim, joined
by Assistant Minister for American Affairs Ali Al-Hefny, met
with Rep. Wolf in place of the FM.
---
MFA
---
¶3. (C) In his meeting with the MFA, Rep. Wolf reviewed four
areas of concern:
--Ayman Nour;
--a dearth of GOE support for U.S. positions within
international fora;
--treatment of Egypt's Coptic Christian and other religious
minorities; and
--Iraq and other regional challenges.
Regarding the Nour case, Rep. Wolf--who opened all of his
ministerial meetings by passing to his interlocutors copies
of the December 29 masthead editorials on the Nour case--told
Ambassador Bassim that the Nour case has "hurt" the GOE; that
Nour himself has "now become bigger than life;" and that
"this has definitely created a problem" that will persist as
long as Nour remains in jail.
¶4. (C) Regarding issues such as potential IAEA referral of
Iran to the UNSC and the reform of the UN Human Rights
Comission, Rep. Wolf cited the absence of GOE support. He
warned that GOE support for the U.S. position on Iran and UN
reform is "really going to impact Egypt,s reputation in the
Congress." Rep. Wolf told Bassim, "We need you on the (Iran)
nuclear issue; we ask for your vote."
¶5. (C) On the matter of Egypt's religious minorities, Rep.
Wolf stressed that members of Congress want the GOE to
continue to build a "fundamental equality" for all Egyptian
citizens. The GOE should consider how it can ensure that
religious conversion in any direction, and to any faith, is
treated equally under the law. GOE law should also adopt a
unifed approach for houses of worship in terms of zoning,
building regulations, and permits.
¶6. (C) Regarding Iraq, Rep. Wolf told the MFA officials
that the U.S. "needs your help" with regard to additional
steps to secure and stabilize Iraq. The ramifications of a
U.S. failure in Iraq, said Rep. Wolf, would be serious for
the region, especially for Egypt, since jihadists in Iraq
would soon direct their efforts against the Mubarak
government if they ever were to succeed in Iraq.
¶7. (C) Regarding Ayman Nour, Bassim said "we must await the
outcome of his appeal" to the Court of Cassation. She noted
that the coverage of the Nour case in the Washington Post and
New York Times suggested an orchestrated campaign against the
GOE. She argued that notwithstanding "some problems" during
the 2005 elections, Egyptians are now "inspired to
participate" in politics. "There will be mistakes on the
way; you had yours," she told the Congressman, but the GOE is
seeking "help and training, not just criticism." As
strategic friends, she continued, the USG and the GOE must
each accept the other with its "deficiencies." Assistant
Minister Hefny added that "your country had 200 years" to
build democratic institutions, and that no one in Egypt had
ever done as much for democracy as President Mubarak did in
¶2005.
¶8. (C) Regarding the GOE position on referral of Iran to
the UNSC, Bassim said that Egyptian public opinion would not
allow the GOE to apply different standards to Iran and
Israel. Bassim introduced her colleague, Deputy Assistant
Minister for Human Rights Ehab Gamal Eddin, to present the
GOE position on UN Human Rights Commission reform. Gamal
Eddin said the GOE agreed about the need for reform, but also
believed that democratic procedures in the UN required
"universal participation" in order to make the new council
more credible. The new council, he argued, should "be open
to all and reflect all belief systems." Neither MFA official
responded directly to Rep. Wolf's question about the
legitimacy of an UN Human Rights body that allowed countries
like Sudan to play a leading role.
¶9. (C) Bassim told Rep. Wolf that "Iraq is issue number
one." Three million Egyptians live in Iraq. She cautioned,
however, that the murder of the Egyptian Ambassador to
Baghdad in 2005 made the GOE "once burned, twice shy."
Nevertheless, Egypt was a willing and important partner in
stablizing Iraq: the GOE remained willing to provide
security training in Egypt, and Orascom, the private Egyptian
communications company, was playing a leading role in
building the Iraq cellular phone network.
¶10. (C) Responding to Rep. Wolf's concerns about religious
freedom, Gamal Eddin insisted that the GOE needed to continue
to annotate national ID cards with religious status because
different religious laws govern the civil affairs of Egypt's
different confessional communities. Moreover, argued Gamal
Eddin, the computerization of the national ID card system,
which "is 40-50 percent complete," would have to be restarted
from scratch if the GOE were to abolish the religious
identity requirement at this point. Regarding Egypt's small
Bahai community, Gamal Eddin admitted that the GOE needs to
find "a practical way out" of the problem it has created by
refusing to issue the Bahais with birth certificates and
national IDs.
----------------------
Interior Minister Adly
----------------------
¶11. (C) In his meeting with Interior Minister Adly, Rep.
Wolf told Adly that the Ayman Nour matter was hurting Egypt,
and needed to be resolved. Minister Adly replied that Nour's
case was a simple criminal matter, that the court gave the
defense plenty of time to make its case, and that it would be
an insult to the Egyptian judiciary to try to intervene in
the matter. Adly assured Rep. Wolf that Nour, who is
currently in the hospital at Torah Farms prison in south
Cairo, has "full medical assistance" and "extra care." In
response to Rep. Wolf's request, Adly said that he had no
objection to Wolf making a visit to Ayman Nour, but that the
modalities would need to be worked out with the Justice
Minister.
¶12. (C) Rep. Wolf and the Ambassador also briefly discussed
with Adly the prospects for increased USG support for modern
police training (including crowd control, public affairs,
responding to complaints, and community-based policing) for
the GOE police services in light of the recent police
violence against voters and deaths that occured during the
removal of Sudanese refugee protestors. Adly noted that he
had already discussed this issue with Suzanne Mubarak, and
said that he looked forward to additional discussions on such
security cooperation. In addition, Adly noted that the
deaths of the 27 Sudanese refugees on December 30, 2005 were
"not the result of tactical police work," but rather were the
unfortunate consequence of "a stampede" by the refugees after
they were hit by police water cannons.
---------------------------
Justice Minister Aboul Leil
---------------------------
¶13. (C) In a brief meeting with the Justice Minister, Rep.
Wolf reiterated his central concerns about Ayman Nour and
formally sought the Minister's permission and assistance to
meet with Nour. Rep. Wolf told the Minister that future
codels would also seek to meet with Nour as long as he
remained in jail. The Minister demurred on providing Rep.
Wolf with an answer immediately, saying that he had to check
first with his subordinate, the Public Prosecutor Maher Abdul
Wahed, about the modalities of any visit to Nour in jail.
Note: After a follow-up call by the Ambassador to Aboul
Leil, MOJ officials told emboff late on January 16 that it
would not be possible for Rep. Wolf to see Nour, "due to the
shortness of time." Rep. Wolf later meet with Nour's wife,
Gameela Ismail, and Ghad Party Vice President Hisham Kassem,
reported septel. End note.
-------------------------------------
Minister of Trade and Industry Rashid
-------------------------------------
¶14. (C) In his meeting with Minister of Trade Rashid, Wolf
received a candid but hopeful briefing about the prospects
for reform in Egypt. Rashid also asserted that the Ayman
Nour case was in fact the result of an internal GOE battle
between pro- and anti-reform elements, and the USG must
remain steady in its support for the pro-reform elements.
¶15. (C) Rashid told Rep. Wolf that the new cabinet, which
brought in more business leaders as minister, was committed
to "change, openness, and the free market." The Egyptian
economy was thriving, Rashid said, thanks to the pro-market
stance of the GOE and due to the influx of petro-dollars from
the Gulf. Still, said Rashid, the remaining challenges were
huge. He offered as examples the bloated personnel rosters
of the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, which have
720,000 and 1.1 million employees respectively. Senior
physicians in the Health Ministry, said Rashid, only earn
about USD 30 per month. These conditions are a recipe for
inefficiency and corruption, and a massive challenge for the
GOE. "It's like trying to fix a car while driving at 100
miles per hour."
¶16. (C) In addition, political reform challenges and
regional security concerns combine to make the situation even
more complex. The 2005 parliamentary elections, said Rashid,
prove that Egyptian citizens "are not happy, and they have
the right (to express this dissatisfaction)." The success of
the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashid continued, was largely due to
the GOE's "terribly bad" policies.
¶17. (C) Rep. Wolf reviewed for Rashid his basic points
about Ayman Nour, and observed that a cynic might be forgiven
for thinking that the decision to prosecute and convict Nour
was the result of anti-reform forces consciously seeking to
provoke the West. After a rueful chuckle, Rashid replied,
"that's a true story." The decision to go after Nour, said
Rashid, was the result of "people sitting around a room
saying, 'How can we stop this?'" Rashid argued that, "Our
real battle, which we are fighting day and night is to push
both economic and political reform." Despite recent
setbacks, like the Nour case, the pro-reform cause is
winning, and indeed it must win, in order to forestall an
eventual Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt. In this
context, argued Rashid, a Free Trade Agreement between Egypt
and the U.S. should be seen not as a carrot or stick for the
GOE, but rather as a way to lock in the reform mentality that
is crucial to Egypt's political and economic success.
¶18. (C) Rep. Wolf told Rashid that despite Rashid's
persuasive presentation, "logic sometimes loses out to
reality." The Nour case and other apparent backsliding by
the GOE on reform, said Rep. Wolf, are "pulling you down."
Rashid, for his part, acknowledged that he understood the
political realities that constrain USTR Portman and the rest
of the USG as well as the Congress.
¶19. (U) Rep. Wolf did not clear this message before he
departed.
RICCIARDONE